The Meeting
by officerunfriendly
Summary: Rick and Michonne meet for the first time. But it doesn't go as either of them had expected.


The sound of the screen door creaking as it moved and the steady thrum of whatever song was blaring from the sound system inside the house were the only things that could be heard. Beyond that the night was nearly eerily quiet and he couldn't complain, he enjoyed the silence and the reprieve it offered. Especially from whatever was going on inside those four walls. However, he knew he wouldn't get to bask in his seclusion for much longer when he heard a set of footfalls approaching.

From his peripheral view he could just make out his new companion and his stomach did something of a nervous flip at the realization. It was _**Michonne**_. He hadn't ever had the pleasure of meeting her personally. Not even tonight. She was friends with practically everyone he knew –– _Andrea, Sasha, Maggie, Rosita, Abe_, hell she was even friends with _Daryl_ who didn't accept anyone into the fold –– but tonight was the first time he'd ever laid eyes on the famed Michonne.

And he'd promptly avoided her thereafter. Not because he didn't care for her, not even because he had no real desire to meet her himself because he had wanted to, it was just that she was –– in every fathomable sense –– his polar opposite. He preferred to be invisible and, as far as everyone attending the party was concerned, he was. He didn't really exist in their circles. And he was fine with that. So all it'd taken for him to back out of formerly introducing himself was seeing the way everyone flocked to her.

She was like a queen bee. Laughing it up with everyone, talking with people like it was the simplest thing in the world. He could even, in his time observing her, make out that it had nothing to do with familiarity. Rick had quite literally witnessed her being introduced to some random and within three minutes flat she had them laughing as though they'd known each other for years. If anything that should've given him the courage to approach her but all it actually did was ward him off like some evil spirit.

The nail in the coffin, though, had been Maggie, Sasha, and Andrea cornering him and asking if he'd spoken to her yet. It was extremely important to them that everyone in their current group that hadn't made her acquaintance meet her. And he, as far as he knew anyway, was the only one in their coterie that hadn't. Rick hadn't even tried to lie to them and the moment they took their eyes off him to find Michonne in the sea of partygoers he'd slipped away like a thief in the night.

That was how he'd wound up outside of the strange house, sitting on the wooden steps of the porch nursing a cigarette and ignoring everything and everyone.

_But she'd found him._

"Rick, right?" she seemed to purr his name and he didn't dare look over at her, she was like the cat that got the cream and he didn't have to look over to know that she was sporting that heartbreaking smile of hers. The smile he'd watched her sport, genuinely, all night. And at some point during the night that continued to drag on he'd fallen in love with the sight of her lips upturning naturally for those that were lucky enough to make her beam, unbeknownst to even himself until right now.

Rick shook his head at the inquiry before bringing the cigarette up to his lips and taking a deep pull, he watched as the tip burned the brightest of orange before dimming again. His mind was moving a mile a minute as he realized he was reverting back to his favorite party trick and he blew out the noxious smoke, the nerve to face her finding him finally. "No. Sorry." He gave a regrettable smile, tight lipped and unwilling to reach his eyes like any true blue stranger that gave false remorse.

Confusion danced across her face, a crease forming between her eyebrows as they drew together, and he sank his teeth into his bottom lip. The action seemed casual and graceful even but it was an expertly disguised ploy to hide the smile that threatened to overtake him. "But didn't you come with Maggie, Andrea, Daryl, and Sasha? They said he would be here with them tonight so I just assumed…"

"Oh, you think? No, no we just happened to walk in at the same time I've never met them before." Rick tapped his cigarette and paid no mind to the ash that wafted down to the step below, he was too busy gauging her reaction to all of this. "So you've never met this _Rick_?"

Michonne's gaze did follow the ash down to the step, however, and she released an inaudible sigh, "No, actually. He seems to be avoiding me." She brought her eyes back up to meet his as she spoke the last sentence and there was something unspoken there that he couldn't quite place.

"Well, why would he do that? If you two haven't met, I mean?" Somehow pretending he wasn't himself made speaking liberally easier; he didn't have to be the guy that stammered and was unintentionally curt when he spoke to new people. Not right now, anyway. And he definitely didn't want to be that guy around Michonne, he didn't want to be **Rick**.

"That's what I've been trying to figure out myself." Rick placed the bud of the cigarette back between his parted lips and he studied her. Agitation at the situation was rolling off of her in unbidden waves and it was all thanks to him. A part of him felt bad for not being upfront, but the other more prominent part of him that enjoyed talking to her so naturally didn't feel a shred of guilt.

He'd been so caught up in his own thoughts that he recoiled instinctually when she reached out to him. It was such a Rick thing to do and he grimaced inwardly at the slip up. "_Relax._ I just want a pull. Sharing is caring and all that jazz."

He nodded slowly before allowing her nimble fingers to pry the cigarette from his mouth, her skin brushed his lips faintly in the process and suddenly they felt as though they'd been licked by flames. God, she was a stranger, one that he was making it unnecessarily hard to become friends with, and yet she was unearthing things in him that made it feel as though he'd known her all his life. "I'm sure he isn't avoiding you. You're just reading into it too much."

"Then why did you make a beeline for the exit when Andrea, Sasha, and Maggie asked if we'd spoken yet?"

"I just needed some fresh ai––" He caught himself too late, pursing his lips at the sneaky and extremely effective method she'd employed to get him to admit he was who she was searching for. Rick lowered his head and released a defeated breath, his index finger and thumb coming up to grasp at the bridge of his nose. "You're good."

"Do you have a problem with me?" Michonne didn't want to beat around the bush. Either he did or he didn't. From where she was standing it most certainly seemed like he did. She just couldn't, for the life of her, understand why that was. What had she done to him? "Because if you do––"

"I don't. Have a problem with you." She finally brought the cigarette up to her lips and he lifted his gaze, and then his head as he looked on, watching her wrap her lips around it. There was something almost involuntarily sensual about the act. But he had a feeling inadvertent sex appeal was a Michonne thing.

"Then what's your deal?" She spoke around the bud before taking her drag. The look she was fixing him with was hard, so unlike the way she'd been looking at him before, and it made him want to cower away from her and get unreasonably close at the same time. At least now he knew what that look from earlier meant, it'd meant he was busted and she was no fool.

"Nothing I–" He shook his head trying to understand for himself what his deal was. She was approachable and she'd sought him out eliminating all of the effort. She'd made it so easy for him and yet he was acting as though she were the enemy. He didn't feel like she was though, but what did that count for if his actions told a uniquely different story. "I don't know. You seem–– _interesting_. _Nice_. _Welcoming_. We're just––_I'm_ just. Good at making things difficult, I guess."

Michonne seemed to be taking his answer into account and weighing it in her mind, it was like he could see the gears moving. When she blew the cloudy grey smoke up above their heads and looked back down at him resolutely he knew she'd made up her mind about how she was going to approach this.

"Well, Rick, I'll make this real easy for you. Easier than I already have been. You and I? There's no hope of a friendship forming here. So you don't have to worry about that. I tried, you apparently don't care, and I'm done." She dropped the cigarette, more to sell her point than anything else, and brought her boot-clad foot down heavy over it. As she stood she sent him a glacial scowl that made his blood run cold and before he knew it he was on his feet as well ready to stop her.

He hadn't exactly anticipated this response, she didn't seem the type to take something like that to heart, but it suddenly felt like her friendship, or her liking him in even the smallest capacity, was all that truly mattered. And he was going to make this right, or try to anyway, and without thinking about it Rick grabbed her upper arm keeping her in place, afraid she'd run off if he didn't. She was quite a bit shorter than him and for some reason he hadn't been expecting that either but he pushed that useless bit of information to the back of his mind.

"Look, I didn't mean for you take anything I did or said tonight to heart. And I'm sorry, okay? That was dumb, but I'm prone to random acts of stupidity." If she felt anything in regards to what he was saying she didn't let it show, and he wondered vaguely if she wanted to play high stakes poker professionally because she had one hell of a poker face. "Really it's nothing against you, you're great. Every bit as great as everyone says you are. And I don't want you to make it easy for me. I want you –– I want _us_ to be friends." His hand had taken on a slight tremor at his own candidness, he wasn't ever this fervent or outspoken but he couldn't let things between them crash and burn before they even took off.

It was his turn to look perplexed because he found that he genuinely was when a shit-eating grin broke out across her lovely face. Michonne placed her hand over the hand he still had grasping her arm and she ran her thumb over it comfortingly to abate the tremors. "I was _joking_, Rick. I just wanted to get back at you for your 'Who the hell is Rick Grimes' stunt. We're good."

He honed in on the sight of their hands, her efforts to soothe him calming him almost instantly, and when she spoke he moved his eyes up to hers. An easy smile took ahold of him and he found himself warming to her immediately. Suddenly he could see why she won over everyone she came into contact with. "I can't believe you just did that."

Michonne pulled her hand away from his an incredulous look taking over her face as she gave his chest a light shove. "After what you did to me? I'd say we're about," She made an invisible four-sided shape in front of his face and whispered, "square."

Rick narrowed his eyes and her incredulity was matched with that of his own. "No, there's no way we're _**square**_. Your stunt was downright cruel. You nearly made me cry!"

Michonne, not at all appreciating the difference in height stepped up so that she was fully atop the porch and gazing down at him, Rick's hand slid down her arm with the repositioning and rested just underneath her elbow now. It was like he was still afraid that she'd leave him somehow and he wasn't ready for that. Not now. Not with the way she was staring at him, their faces close and eyes alight with the obvious delight they felt. Right now with her was the most fun he'd had tonight and he wanted to milk it for all it was worth.

"I'm not sorry." She smirked and placed her hand over his as she had done before and the simple gesture made his heart leap, until she pushed his hand away. "Not even a little bit." She probably understood what it all meant, how much something so simple meant to him more than even he did. And she was taking advantage of it.

He didn't miss a beat when she started for the door, chasing after her and grabbing her arm again to spin her around. He wasn't sure why he felt comfortable enough to touch her so freely and consistently but she didn't protest. Even now with her pinned between him and the screen door. The amusement they felt was still there but it was being rapidly overshadowed by something else, something that was more apparent now that their bodies were impossibly close, something that had been cultivating on his end for her all night long.

"Good. Don't be. I deserved it." She didn't expect him to concede so easily, with the way he'd followed after her and pinned her to the door she'd been ready for a nice back and forth. But him bending so easily for her was every bit as good, it made her feel more important than she knew she was. "You probably should've made me cry."

"Would you say you're a masochist, Rick? Because I would. And I've known you for all of twenty minutes." Michonne smiled faintly when she felt his breath ghost across her face from his quiet laughter, it was the first time she'd made him laugh and even in it's softness she could make out that it was a sweet sound like wading through a sea of thick molasses.

"I'm glad we're good now." He titled his head and Michonne pressed her now sweat slick palms against the screen behind her. He was looking at her lips and she knew what that meant. Everyone knew what that meant. She was just wondering where the deafening attraction she felt for him had come from. And even more than that she was wondering why all she wanted him to do was make the move, close the distance.

"Yeah, me, too." She removed one of her hands from the door behind her and placed it on the arm that was successfully caging her in. She gave it a reassuring squeeze hoping somehow that'd get him in gear.

When he finally worked up the courage to go through with the kiss, his lips a hairs length away from hers, the door opened, interrupting the moment. And maybe it was the universe's way of trying to shit on them entirely but of all people the door opened to Sasha who was followed by none other than Andrea and Maggie.

"There you––" Sasha paused but her sentence was finished by an equally shocked Maggie. "Are..."

Michonne and Rick separated as though they'd been caught in the midst of engaging in some unspeakable act, and maybe kissing someone you'd known for twenty minutes _was_ some horribly revolting act or at least that's what it felt like with the three sets of stunned eyes watching them. Neither of them could even bring themselves to look at the other for a time but Rick was the first to speak, "I, uh, I'm gonna go have a smoke. It was––nice to finally meet you."

He looked over at Michonne finally and she met his gaze, nodding her agreement. "Yeah, it was ––– _**nice**_." She contained the smile that was trying to tug at her lips and grabbed the screen door prying it open and squeezing past the wall of women thankful that they still had their sights set on Rick for the time being.

"We leave you two alone for––" It was Andrea's turn to speak but Rick was having none of it. He felt good, if not a little embarrassed, and he didn't want his mellow harshed by their probing.

"I'm gonna have that smoke now but I'm sure Michonne would love to tell you all about what you _think_ you just witnessed." Rick backed away from them with a newfound quickness and pulled his carton of cigarettes from his pocket.

"Rick, don't walk away!" Sasha called after him as he spun on his heel and continued down the steps, a contented smile plastered across his face.

"You're not off the hook, Grimes! After we talk to Michonne you're next. Do you hear me?!" He shook his head at Maggie's parting words and lifted his hand in air bidding them goodnight.

He just needed to be alone for a while to rehash what had almost been.


End file.
